Editing Guide/Archive
THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF THE PRE-SEPTEMBER 2010 EDITING GUIDE. Major changes were made afterwards Rules and Guidelines About Content Content placed in articles must be directly relevant to the game. Spoilers, hints and walk-throughs are not tolerated on the Article page, it is requested that such content is placed on the discussion tab. Speculation and other general discussion, which may be a little off topic can also be put on the discussion tab. Although anything way off base will be deleted. The discussion tab can be found at the top right of the page. Content placed in articles must be from the Live Realm. Do not put material from the Test Realm on the wiki; game content often changes greatly between test and live content and any postings of test realm material will be deleted. ALWAYS Edit in Source A very important thing when editing any page on this Wiki is to make sure you are always editing in source code. To do this, press the "Source" button in the upper right corner of the edit window. If you do not do this, many of your changes will be superficial, not work as intended, and even delete code from the pages! If you want to set your preferences so that you are always editing in source, and never have to hit the button again, go to Change Settings to Always Edit in Source. Creating New Pages Please use the templates if possible: information on how to create new pages can be found at Creating New Pages. Please read everything thoroughly so that your pages are created properly and with the right Categories. Edit an Existing Page To access the editing page for a particular article click on the Edit this page link in the top left corner of the articles frame. will help with all basic wiki editing. Writing : “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs” -- Stephen King We now come to the meat of an article: the words themselves. When you're editing wikis, you're both academic and artist. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting. Neither one can dominate; you have to skillfully balance both. Keep your writing concise. Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible. When you write, use grammar as a toolbox: know the rules, but only break them on purpose. Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to'. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article. Check your capitalization: The Following words do not receive capitalization unless they are the initial word in the title of a work - a, an, and, of, the, for, and occasionally (when not in a duplex preposition) with, under, over, and between. Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article. What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed history of humans on the page about Winston Churchill. Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information. Write from an impersonal perspective.' Do not use "I." For example, do not write, "Hellscream was a fervent member of the Horde. He served both the Old and New Horde, As far as I know." Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself) as much as possible. Be bold. If you know something is wrong, correct it. If you think you could word something better, write it. If an article has a glaring deficiency, fill it. Even if your first attempt isn't golden, you can fix it later or someone else will come along and fix it for you. Don't be afraid to screw up. Grammar Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication. Capitalization Titles such as lord or king start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name): "King Arthas", not "king Arthas". When used generically, they should be in lower case: "Furion is a powerful lord." The correct formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun. Hence: "Anduin is the current King of Stormwind." Classes should only be capitalized when used as a proper noun, i.e. as someone's name. ("Warlock, go be evil" versus "That warlock is quite evil.") Creating articles and Using Templates The most common way an article is created is when a link does not connect to an existing page. These links show up red - if you click on them they take you to the article creation page where you can create a new article. Articles should be loaded with an article template before information is added, the article templates load the format and style used by that type of article in this wiki. The table below shows the articles, the template codes, a link to an example and a guideline on when this template is used. To load a template you simply input the template code on the page and then save. The template will then load and you can edit the page as if it was an existing page. *''' '''Hints, Guides and Discussions should be placed in the Discussion tab Article management templates :All article management templates should be added to the top of the page they are needed on - these templates are used to bring the article to the attention either Admins (to delete) or to regular users to add more information (stubs). Nominate an article for deletion :Add to an article to nominate it for deletion. It will add the article to Category:Candidates for deletion. Stubs :When a page has little or no useful information, then it is likely a stub. Adding will include them in Category:Article stubs, and is used to list which articles need expanding. Create A New Page The second way a new article is created is to use the create a new article link found in the special pages menu on the bottom of the nav bar (on the left hand side of the screen). This is not generally recommended. Most pages created in this way will not link to the rest of the wiki and will be lost - if there is a page that needs to be created in this manner make sure it has categories added correctly and if possible add links on the suitable existing pages so that it will be found easily. Lead section or Description Unless an article is very short, it should start with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should not be explicitly entitled Introduction or any equivalent header. The table of contents, if displayed, appears after the lead section and before the first subheading. The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable. It should be between one or two paragraphs long, and should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article. If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article. For example, write "King Frederick II was King of Terra during and after the Second War." The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes — article title produces article title. Avoid other uses of bold in the first sentence, except for alternative titles of an article; for example: The blood elves, or sin'dorei, are a race comprised of former high elves... Do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence. For example, "The night elves are an ancient race..." versus "The night elves are an ancient race." Section headings Use the (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to . Do not use a single =. This is because a single = creates an heading which is already used by the page header and would be bad coding. Also, do not use wikilinks in subject headings. When edited, these sections become confusing in the edit history because of the link code. Consider instead putting the word in the first or second sentence of the section and linking it there. Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of the ampersand, use the word "and" unless the ampersand is part of a formal name. Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections. Images Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can detract from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up. Large images such as screenshots use the "thumb" (example: ) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default. When uploading an image keep the title concise and use the article name as much as possible, leave natural spacing in the title. For example on a location page the map should be titled (for Unicorn Way)(example: ). For more information, see . Galleries When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readability of an articles, the use of a section is encouraged. This generally applies if there are more than two images. Image:Dragon (Pet).png|Dragon Image:Krokotillian.png|Krokotillian Image:Unicorn (Pet).png|Unicorn Categories Navigation of the depends heavily on the use of categories, so using categories and adding the correct ones is very important. The table below outlines the use of categories to make this easier, unlike templates there are too many to list every single category. Tables Tables are not commonly used, but if you require a table the instructions below should help you craft a table to suit the needs of the article. Tables should use a "class" design when possible, and should include as little 'fancy' formatting as possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class. For long tables, it is recommended to create an "alt" class to alternate row colours to enhance readability. The below examples use "toccolours" as a class, but this is only for the purposes of demonstration, and isn't generally recommended. With row headings, table caption, sortable | |} Without row headings, with alt rows | |} Conclusion Every article can be improved (even this one). Following these guidelines will not ensure a perfect article the first time, but it will give the article a stronger start. It's ultimately your job as an editor to put fill it out. Category:Wiki How To